


"Are you calling me a tragic hero?"

by Bounteous



Series: a bunch of goddamn, teenage cliches [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Angst and Feels, Bisexual Sokka (Avatar), Bisexual Zuko (Avatar), Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hard of Hearing Zuko (Avatar), Light Angst, M/M, Partially Blind Zuko (Avatar), Sokka (Avatar) Has ADHD, Sokka (Avatar)-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26489242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bounteous/pseuds/Bounteous
Summary: Zuko comforts Sokka with things he's learned from therapy.
Relationships: Bato/Hakoda (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: a bunch of goddamn, teenage cliches [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1891558
Comments: 20
Kudos: 313





	"Are you calling me a tragic hero?"

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have the HD part of ADHD, but I'm definitely projecting unto Sokka

Sokka has been many of Zuko’s firsts, and that’s daunting. It’s even more daunting when he starts to think about all those firsts that, had Zuko lived a normal, healthy childhood, wouldn’t have been Sokka by a longshot. 

First boyfriend? That’s easy. Most people aren’t out of the closet until high school or later, anyway. First… you know. Not entirely rare, but precious all the same. He’s not Zuko’s first kiss, but part of Sokka holds onto that piece with an iron grip because...because he…

Things get tricky when he’s stuck with fits of insomnia, so he climbs to the roof of his quaint, suburban home through his window and lays on the frosted shingles to stare up, unblinkingly, at the night sky. Even as he struggles to get his body to stay still (his energy has been funneled to a single focal point—tapping irregularly against the roof), his mind won’t slow down, shut off, anything. 

He feels useless because those thoughts, the ones racing back and forth so fast he can’t quite grasp them to articulate them coherently, aren’t even important.  _ The sky looks pretty. It’d look prettier if they were back in their old home. Their old home had a lot more snow by this time in the year. Perhaps he can convince Zuko to go sledding sometime. Wait, he needs to buy a new winter jacket. He definitely wants a blue one. _

He came out here to not think, but distractions exist in a constant state and it’s that reason alone that he even bothers to continue taking his medication. That, and his father pays with money that borders on nonexistent. 

_ Focus, Sokka.  _ Anyway, Sokka was the first person to tell Zuko he loved him (well, someone who wasn’t an immediate part of his family). It wasn’t a big deal until it was. Zuko ran away. For three days. Didn’t show up to school. Wouldn’t answer his phone. According to Iroh, he hadn’t even left his room except to eat and go to the bathroom.

Sokka drove over, afraid he’d crossed a dangerous line by going too fast, only for Zuko, who knew the pounding knocks couldn’t have been Iroh’s gentle rapping, to swing open his door and pull his boyfriend into a desperately passionate kiss.

He was the first person to witness one of his panic attacks and it broke his heart when Zuko turned to him and said, “you stayed?”

He was the first person to touch his scar, the first to wipe away the tears as they fell, trickling down his ruddy cheeks and carving his past into his face.

The first person Zuko ever allowed himself to be vulnerable with. 

It’s not exhausting, he doesn’t feel like his caregiver. But it’s terrifying to know that he’s Zuko’s one and only example of how relationships and love and sex should be. Sokka feels loved because his boyfriend gives as much as he receives, but these are private feelings for him to ruminate over. Sokka will never let him know these thoughts that burrow deep into his brain and root themselves at inconvenient times. 

Something wet tickles his ear and his nose, when he breathes in, is stuffy and, when he breathes out, snotty. He feels guilty for crying. What a stupid thing to cry over, feeling inadequate for his boyfriend when his boyfriend is the one who feels inadequate for him. 

“Sokka?”

Oh, great, now he’s hearing things, too.

“Sokka, are you up there?”

With furrowed brows, Sokka rolls over until he’s able to peer over the edge of the roof and see his boyfriend’s silhouette outlined by the silvery light of the moon standing in his yard.

“Zuko? What the hell are you doing here? Did you walk here?”

He begins climbing the trellis, replying, “Well, I—yeah. You texted me you wanted to talk and then never responded again. I got concerned.”

He genuinely doesn’t remember texting Zuko, but he thinks his phone is probably in the mess of sheets and comforter on his bed somewhere. 

A quiet, “Oh,” is all he can muster.

“Have you been crying?”

The concern is sweet, but… odd coming from Zuko’s mouth. It’s usually the other way around. 

Sokka scoots back, allowing Zuko to climb up top, and falls back into the space where his body heat has melted all the frost. 

“Possibly. I’m still handsome, though, right?” A fake smile that doesn’t reach his eyes and a half-hearted chuckle accompanies his words and he really shouldn’t have tried because Zuko can see right through him.

He moves to lay down next to him like some caricature of shitty romcoms where their hands are the only things touching, barely brushing against each other until Zuko slips his fingers firmly between Sokka’s. It’s strange the way their love languages differ from each other, but fit so impeccably well together. 

Sokka, for all his extroverted tendencies and constant need to touch, prefers space. It has to do with his ADHD and the need to minimize distractions while he works to figure out his thoughts. He’s never gone to therapy, never felt the need to go, but he’s discovered that incoherence bothers him more than it should. It’s not like Zuko is a licensed therapist, able to dissect his issues into pivotal childhood moments. Sokka already lives a life of fleeting thoughts and an acute inability to focus when it matters, so it’s important to him to clarify for himself why he’s upset in the first place.

Edgy, emo Zuko, on the other hand, needs physical reassurance to ground him. He once explained that he feels like a balloon, empty and liable to float away if someone doesn’t catch him. Sokka knows it took him a long time to come to terms with needing help (vulnerability doesn’t come easy to either of them, but they’ve made it work somehow), but now he allows himself to wordlessly crawl into his boyfriend’s lap because Sokka will always be there. 

This is the kind of dynamic that makes their relationship appear horribly unbalanced to outsiders. 

“You’re always handsome,” Zuko replies, voice soft in the chilly, night atmosphere, “but I’d prefer you without the tears if they mean you’re upset.”

Sokka sights—a lonely sound. “It’s just dumb stuff.”

He sees Zuko’s head turn towards him out of his peripheral and pointedly looks up at Pisces through the haze of clouds.

“You always make me talk about my issues even though I already talk about them with my therapist.”

“Yeah, but your issues are deep-seated childhood trauma, Zuko. This is just me being insecure.”

Zuko’s fingers tighten around his. “That’s not ‘dumb stuff’, Sokka. Your insecurity is practically your hamartia.”

This is when cerulean eyes find gold in the darkness. “Are you calling me a tragic hero?”

“You just might be if you don’t do anything about it,” he deadpans.

“Let’s go inside first, I’m really cold now.”

They help themselves to some hot chocolate, careful not to make too much noise in case either Katara or either of their dads discover Zuko having basically snuck into the house, before settling across from each other on Sokka’s unmade bed. Sokka can’t stop drooling over his boyfriend wearing his pajamas, but then he remembers why he’s even there in the first place and his libido only deflates slightly. 

The two of them sit there under low desk-light in a room of a million shades of blue, cheeks wind-whipped and eyes soft with affection. Sokka hadn’t noticed before, but Zuko had been wearing his varsity jacket and he allows his heart to leap with joy as he looks at hanging on his closet door knob. 

The drink burns his tongue when he takes a large sip, but he begins by saying, “I want to be good for you.”

He watches the one eyebrow Zuko has furrow in confusion. “You are good to me.”

“No,  _ for you _ . Are you sure your hearing aid is working?”

The furrow turns into annoyance. “Yes, it’s working just fine, thank you. Why do you think you’re not good for me?”

He wants to scream because he knows why, he does, but he just can’t say it. “Because… because… I don’t know! You’re just so soft and sweet and precious and I want to hold you and protect from all the bad in the world—”

“I’m not a baby, Sokka, you don’t need to coddle me.”

“I know that, I just—I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant… I don’t know what I meant,” he finishes deflated, shoulders slumped. Why did he even entertain this discussion? 

“Draw it for me,” Zuko says after a moment’s silence.

“What?”

“You like art, so draw me a picture about what you’re feeling. Just make a bunch of symbols and tell me what they mean when you’re done. I don’t know if you’ve noticed in the almost three years we’ve been dating, but English is my best subject and I’m fairly good at recognizing context clues.”

Zuko gets up then, setting both of their empty cups onto his side table before opening up Sokka’s desk drawer and rifling through until he finds a blank piece of printer paper and a pencil.

“It won’t be good,” Sokka says, taking the items handed to him.

“It’s a technique I learned from my therapist, it doesn’t need to be award-winning.”

“What, having people draw their feelings?”

“No, just having patients express themselves through their interests and hobbies. I like reading, right, and we discovered I actually have a tendency to navigate towards plays when I’m feeling particularly anxious.”

“Your mom was an actress, wasn’t she?”

“She was, exactly.” Zuko motions towards the supplies. “So, draw.”

“Actually, I want my colored pencils, hold on.”

For the next hour, Sokka buckles down with the intensity of Zuko’s eyes on him often enough that he has to tell him at least three times to stop staring. Sokka is not an especially skilled artist, but he enjoys painting and drawing all the same. That’s the mindset he’s had since he was a kid bouncing from sport-to-sport, hobby-to-hobby.

It confused his father, for sure, because what kid crazily intelligent with numbers and a curiosity for science that knew no bounds wanted to try his hand at poetry? Hakoda took it all in stride, though, and always made sure his son felt supported in whatever crazy endeavor came next.  _ Multipotentialite _ ? Was that the word? Sokka watched a Ted Talk on it once. Regardless, it’s not that he enjoys doing a lot of things, it’s that he simply enjoys doing things, period.

His finished product is… colorful and there’s a lot happening, but that’s the point. In the middle is a rudimentary drawing of himself surrounded by a blob of every possible color. 

“This is me,” Sokka points out, “and the scribble of color is my insecurity. And also my ADHD, but it’s my insecurity in this instance.”

Protruding from his body are multiple black lines that individually lead to various friends and family members. 

“And the lines are my connections to people. They’re black because each connection is tainted by my incompetence.”

Each person is surrounded by black scribbles, but Zuko’s is the biggest and interlaced with blue lines that spike at random.

“We’re gonna forget about the others because today’s breakdown is about you. That’s why you’re bigger. You have black around you because it shows how you’re ruined by my mistakes. Like when we argue or when I don’t know how to help you during attacks or when I make insensitive jokes. There’s blue because I like the color blue and we’re dating and it represents my influence over you. It’s spikey because I’m scared that my influence is a bad one.”

Sokka ends his sentence with the fluctuation of continuing, but all he does is breathe out and look at Zuko's inquisitive gaze.

“You’re not a bad influence on me,” he finally says, keeping his eye contact direct. “In fact, you’re the one who brought me out of my shell. I get that I haven’t had a ton of experience with things kids my age normally do and it must be terrifying for you to be the one to constantly teaching me these things, right? You’re not bad at it and, while some of my opinions may be biased because of you, it doesn’t mean I’m ‘tainted’.” 

Zuko cups Sokka’s cheeks in between his warm hands and Sokka can’t help the bubbling of tears about to spill over. 

“Listen, I could go on and on about how you’re not a bad person, you’re not ruining me, that you don’t make as many mistakes as you believe, but I’m not gonna do that. What I’m gonna do is tell you to stop worrying about being ‘good for me’, worry about being my boyfriend. My incredibly hot, muscly, intelligent, excitable boyfriend. Take me out on dates, hold my hand, kiss me goodnight and also just for fun. I don’t need you to be an example anymore, I just need you to be you.”

Sokka blinks once his vision becomes too blurry to see his boyfriend’s loving gaze and the tears cascade like ironically sad sparkles over Zuko’s hands. A million fleeting thoughts race their path through his mind, but Sokka, for one, ignores them all. For once, the distraction sitting in front of him is plaid pajama bottoms and an obscure band tee (wrinkled because Sokka never folds his clothes and he’s not sorry about it) is a welcome one.

“Kiss me,” he says, and Zuko complies.

If Hakoda walks into his son’s room the next morning to mention that breakfast is ready and finds him and his boyfriend tangled together under the covers, then he makes a point not to disturb them. And they claim Bato is the cool dad.


End file.
